Mantis Posted December 3, 2015 Share Posted December 3, 2015 3 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said: The point of the article is that the media very specifically chose not to refer to it as terrorism. It looks like we have a problem! Mantis says it is terrorism, the media says it isn't. Almost as if the meaning of 'terrorism' wasn't as simple as all that after all . . . In academia at least the definition of terrorism is a lot more concrete (although there are still disagreements of course). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted December 3, 2015 Share Posted December 3, 2015 I'm off to bed, so this is my parting remark in this exchange (interesting discussion, though bold claim in the Corbyn=traitor bit!) You have two, related, dilemmas as I see it. You've said Jeremy Corbyn is a terrorist sympathiser, and I agree. In the 80's, if not later, he clearly sympathised with the aims, though not the methods, of the IRA. What a rotter! Sympathising with terrorists is bad! But however you choose to draw lines around the word 'terrorism', you're going to end up including in the box a whole bunch of groups that right-wing politicians have praised or defended. So we're left with difficulties, when considering groups of the same era like UNITA and the Nicaraguan Contras, as well as leaders who implemented policies that sure look like terrorism, such as Pinochet, Suharto, the Khmer Rouge and Efrain Rios Montt. Thatcher, Reagan etc. supported many of the aims of these groups and individuals, even when they didn't support the methods. Your argument is that our Reagans, Thatchers and so on did 'what was in the national interest', but all that means is they were in power and Jeremy Corbyn wasn't, so they defined 'the national interest' while Jeremy Corbyn didn't. Your second problem is that, however you choose to define terrorism, I'm going to be able to find an example of an act of violence which followed the patterns of your definition, but wasn't called 'terrorism'. Which is the point - its principle meaning is 'actions by people I don't like, and want to discredit'. Our allies are freedom fighters/resistance fighters, our enemies are terrorists. Or, to quote chrisp65 who put it rather more succinctly, 'It's a bit like I suggested, not simple'. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mantis Posted December 3, 2015 Share Posted December 3, 2015 What I would argue is that Corbyn and McDonnell didn't associate with the IRA because they thought it was in the national interest but because they sympathised with the aims of certain terrorist groups outright and if not agreed with the methods at least didn't care much. To be fair, there are very few (if any) instances of terrorism where everybody will agree that that is terrorism, so I don't really know what you mean by the "but wasn't called terrorism". Are you referring to just certain media outlets and politicians here? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OutByEaster? Posted December 3, 2015 Moderator Share Posted December 3, 2015 In the early 80's the UN attempted to provide a legal definition for terrorism, it was an attempt to differentiate between terrorist acts and those of say the French resistance in World War II who were opposing an occupying force in defence of sovereign territory. It won the vote by something like 167-4 - but one of the few against it was the US who promptly vetoed it because under this definition it was impossible to legally defend the actions of its two allies at the time, apartheid South Africa and Israel. The problem we've always had with defining terrorism is that when we get it right, it restricts our ability to support and carry out terrorism for our own ends. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted December 3, 2015 Share Posted December 3, 2015 What kicked this off is that the Prime Minister decided to label an unspecified group of people (but they would be among those who took a different view from him on extending bombing missions in to Syria) as 'terrorist sympathisers'. There are a number of criticisms of him for using that kind of term (whether in a private meeting or not - I note that although he didn't admit using it, I think, he didn't seem to deny it when he refused to apologize for using it) and conflating it with voting against the government motion not least the one that it deflects from actually talking about what was being debated or the demagogic technique that Cameron felt was needed in a 1922 committee meeting (are they really a group of people that need to be convinced to back the PM and government in that kind of way?) and has people wasting their time in an interminable semantic battle over the word terrorism. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted December 3, 2015 Author Moderator Share Posted December 3, 2015 2 hours ago, snowychap said: people wasting their time in an interminable semantic battle over the word terrorism. They must have become bored with arguing over what to call ISIS/ISIL/Daesh/So called Islamic State 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted December 7, 2015 Share Posted December 7, 2015 (edited) From today's Grauniad live politics blog: Quote George Parker and Kate Allen in the Financial Times (subscription) say Cameron's to take away the House of Lords’ power to block secondary legislation. David Cameron has been secretly drawing up a plan to bypass an increasingly hostile anti-Tory majority in the House of Lords, which is threatening to wreak havoc with his legislative plans. The UK prime minister will use the recent bust-up with the Lords on tax-credit reform as a chance to neuter the powers of the upper house. Lord Strathclyde, the Tory grandee charged by Mr Cameron with reviewing the role of peers, is set to propose this month that the Lords should lose its veto over delegated or “secondary” legislation, such as the measure implementing tax-credit cuts. Once that veto is removed, Mr Cameron is expected to step up his government’s increasing use of delegated legislation — also known as statutory instruments — to ram contentious measures through the upper house. “We are being told to use statutory instruments wherever possible to get legislation through,” said one Conservative aide. Statutory instruments receive less parliamentary time and scrutiny than full bills. Perhaps the tax credits thing worked as intended (at least in part)? Edited December 7, 2015 by snowychap Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xann Posted December 21, 2015 Share Posted December 21, 2015 Slipped out last week. No one noticed then? Quote In tribute to a West Wing episode where a vast amount of bad news is dumped to avoid scrutiny, it’s been dubbed “Take out the Trash Day” . On the very last day of the parliamentary year, the government traditionally publishes hundreds of documents and announcements, just when there are fewer journalists and MPs to scrutinise them. Perhaps every one of the 400 reports, statements, and data releases that were published on Thursday simply weren’t ready until today. An alternative explanation is the government is very happy to publish all these documents at a time when most MPs are heading home and the country is distracted. The idea is that there’s so much to analyse, at least some of the bad news will be missed, but even if it’s picked up, the negative reaction will be drowned out. 1. The vast majority of those affected by the bedroom tax had to cut down on food to make up for the reduction in housing benefit. The bedroom tax, which reduced benefits for social housing residents who have spare rooms, was implemented in 2013 and affected hundreds of thousands of people. The long-awaited report into the impact of the cuts was finally published on Take Out the Trash Day, and was carried out by the independent research organisation Ipsos Mori along with the Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research. More than three-quarters of those affected by the bedroom tax said they were forced to cut down on food to afford the additional costs, while almost half also said they had to find ways to cut down their energy bill. A third said they had to reduce the amount they spent on transport as result of the additional burden... More dirty linen highlights here at Buzzfeed. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post blandy Posted December 21, 2015 Author Moderator Popular Post Share Posted December 21, 2015 So, they cut funding for the other parties, they introduced laws to make union members repeatedly opt in to pay Labour a few pence a week to Labour, they cut funding for the BBC, they also make the BBC pay the license fee for old people, they've banned charities and pressure groups from campaigning close to election times, they're redrawing constituency boundaries to make them more Tory, they're adding to the numbers of Lords by bunging in a load of tories, while stripping the powers of the Lords to oppose them. They're blasting the poor and less well off, They're washing their hands of steel workers and miners while now leaving the bankers to get on with it. They're promoting Fracking and Gas while cutting subsidies for renewables. They've binned a carbon capture scheme just before it was about to lay an egg, while signing up to the Paris COP treaty. The privatisation of the Probation service is falling apart at the seams... is there any depth they will not sink to? 12 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post PongRiddims Posted December 21, 2015 Popular Post Share Posted December 21, 2015 So, they cut funding for the other parties, they introduced laws to make union members repeatedly opt in to pay Labour a few pence a week to Labour, they cut funding for the BBC, they also make the BBC pay the license fee for old people, they've banned charities and pressure groups from campaigning close to election times, they're redrawing constituency boundaries to make them more Tory, they're adding to the numbers of Lords by bunging in a load of tories, while stripping the powers of the Lords to oppose them. They're blasting the poor and less well off, They're washing their hands of steel workers and miners while now leaving the bankers to get on with it. They're promoting Fracking and Gas while cutting subsidies for renewables. They've binned a carbon capture scheme just before it was about to lay an egg, while signing up to the Paris COP treaty. The privatisation of the Probation service is falling apart at the seams... is there any depth they will not sink to? Don't forget the constant moving of the goalposts in education to force more academy conversions 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrentVilla Posted December 21, 2015 Moderator Share Posted December 21, 2015 7 hours ago, blandy said: So, they cut funding for the other parties, they introduced laws to make union members repeatedly opt in to pay Labour a few pence a week to Labour, they cut funding for the BBC, they also make the BBC pay the license fee for old people, they've banned charities and pressure groups from campaigning close to election times, they're redrawing constituency boundaries to make them more Tory, they're adding to the numbers of Lords by bunging in a load of tories, while stripping the powers of the Lords to oppose them. They're blasting the poor and less well off, They're washing their hands of steel workers and miners while now leaving the bankers to get on with it. They're promoting Fracking and Gas while cutting subsidies for renewables. They've binned a carbon capture scheme just before it was about to lay an egg, while signing up to the Paris COP treaty. The privatisation of the Probation service is falling apart at the seams... is there any depth they will not sink to? At least they are true to their word, we are all in it together and nobody can doubt they are screwing just about everyone of us. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demitri_C Posted December 22, 2015 Share Posted December 22, 2015 I just read that they want to charge call outs for elderly that have falls. That is just beyond evil, how dare any government do that? That is completely inhuman in my eyes. So if they dont pay or have anymore you will leave them on the floor. Disgusting Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darrenm Posted December 22, 2015 Share Posted December 22, 2015 19 hours ago, blandy said: So, they cut funding for the other parties, they introduced laws to make union members repeatedly opt in to pay Labour a few pence a week to Labour, they cut funding for the BBC, they also make the BBC pay the license fee for old people, they've banned charities and pressure groups from campaigning close to election times, they're redrawing constituency boundaries to make them more Tory, they're adding to the numbers of Lords by bunging in a load of tories, while stripping the powers of the Lords to oppose them. They're blasting the poor and less well off, They're washing their hands of steel workers and miners while now leaving the bankers to get on with it. They're promoting Fracking and Gas while cutting subsidies for renewables. They've binned a carbon capture scheme just before it was about to lay an egg, while signing up to the Paris COP treaty. The privatisation of the Probation service is falling apart at the seams... is there any depth they will not sink to? Well, they are right wing, they're only doing what people expect of them. Surely everyone knew they were voting in creeping nazis and made their choice based on that? I mean, each to their own, I don't understand people voting for this, but it's their choice. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted December 22, 2015 Share Posted December 22, 2015 3 hours ago, Demitri_C said: I just read that they want to charge call outs for elderly that have falls. That is just beyond evil, how dare any government do that? That is completely inhuman in my eyes. So if they dont pay or have anymore you will leave them on the floor. Disgusting I gather, after a quick google, that it's a particular council in Essex that are proposing that for their careline service. Without knowing the details of who came up with the idea and who is supporting it, all one can say is that the council is NOC with the local Tories being the largest party. What it does highlight is one rather hidden effect of 'austerity' - council budgets being reduced. From Xann's buzzfeeed link above : Quote 12. The government confirmed cuts to local government budgets. Local councils will see their funding fall by 6.7% in real terms over the course of this parliament, the government announced on Take Out the Trash Day, after coming to a deal with local authorities. The deal, which the government said will give councils the ability to plan in the long term, will also come with £3.5 billion of additional funding for adult social care. It is one of the 'joys' of localism that government can cut the budgets of local authorities and then say that they aren't responsible for the particular decisions being made that result from that budget cut. Of course, it's about setting these local authorities 'free'. Snigger. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demitri_C Posted December 22, 2015 Share Posted December 22, 2015 6 minutes ago, snowychap said: I gather, after a quick google, that it's a particular council in Essex that are proposing that for their careline service. Without knowing the details of who came up with the idea and who is supporting it, all one can say is that the council is NOC with the local Tories being the largest party. What it does highlight is one rather hidden effect of 'austerity' - council budgets being reduced. From Xann's buzzfeeed link above : It is one of the 'joys' of localism that government can cut the budgets of local authorities and then say that they aren't responsible for the particular decisions being made that result from that budget cut. Of course, it's about setting these local authorities 'free'. Snigger. Thanks for that Snowy. I just think that is just inhuman whoever came up with that garbage should be sacked Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrentVilla Posted December 22, 2015 Moderator Share Posted December 22, 2015 1 hour ago, darrenm said: Well, they are right wing, they're only doing what people expect of them. Surely everyone knew they were voting in creeping nazis and made their choice based on that? I mean, each to their own, I don't understand people voting for this, but it's their choice. I think you are crediting the general public with more awareness, knowledge and understanding than is justified. I mean everyone should know what the deep rooted ideological stand point is of this party, regardless of how moderate Cameron himself may or may not be and no matter how much ham face says "we are all in it together". But alas the public at large are hugely disaffected with politics, disinterested even while the curse of modern society, entitlement culture and self interest, ensure people barely look past the headlines and what appears to be in it for them. People might have put their tick in a box but I'm not sure they made a choice, certainly not an informed one and the media certainly didn't help. The Ya-bo politics of the dispatch box is matched in its infancy by much of the media coverage of elections, the increasingly toothless BBC being almost as bad as the biased print media. Its X-Factor politics, people are so busy pressing the red button for who they like the look of they've not actually stopped to listen and realise the song is shit. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darrenm Posted December 22, 2015 Share Posted December 22, 2015 (edited) 7 minutes ago, TrentVilla said: I think you are crediting the general public with more awareness, knowledge and understanding than is justified. It provided a good soapbox though. Edited December 22, 2015 by darrenm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted December 22, 2015 Author Moderator Share Posted December 22, 2015 22 minutes ago, TrentVilla said: I think you are crediting the general public with more awareness, knowledge and understanding than is justified. I mean everyone should know what the deep rooted ideological stand point is of this party, regardless of how moderate Cameron himself may or may not be and no matter how much ham face says "we are all in it together". But alas the public at large are hugely disaffected with politics, disinterested even while the curse of modern society, entitlement culture and self interest, ensure people barely look past the headlines and what appears to be in it for them. People might have put their tick in a box but I'm not sure they made a choice, certainly not an informed one and the media certainly didn't help. The Ya-bo politics of the dispatch box is matched in its infancy by much of the media coverage of elections, the increasingly toothless BBC being almost as bad as the biased print media. Its X-Factor politics, people are so busy pressing the red button for who they like the look of they've not actually stopped to listen and realise the song is shit. Perhaps, at least in part, the public are hugely disaffected because the system is so rotten, rather than because they're lacking awareness, knowledge and understanding? Cameron is not moderate, he's just as bad as the rest of 'em, but with a (now dropped) coating of green and a bit of social modernity with the gay marriage thing. There are so many people whose vote is meaningless. Most constituencies don't change hands, they're safe one way or the other. And even when they do change, there hasn't been that much difference between Red and Blue in the past (until relatively recently). Maybe a lot of people have just decided that whoever they vote for words removed will get in. But in terms of awareness, there are plenty of people with views on immigration, on the environment, on the NHS and all that. It's just more single issue based, a lot of the time, and that's replaced party based allegiances, perhaps? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xann Posted December 23, 2015 Share Posted December 23, 2015 Quote The British Government signed a secret security pact with Saudi Arabia and is now attempting to prevent details of the deal from being made public. The Home Secretary Theresa May agreed to the so-called ‘memorandum of understanding’ with her Saudi counter-part Crown Prince Muhammad bin Nayef during a visit to the Kingdom last year. Independent ... and they're so keen to know what we're up to? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrentVilla Posted December 23, 2015 Moderator Share Posted December 23, 2015 On 22 December 2015 at 14:25, blandy said: Perhaps, at least in part, the public are hugely disaffected because the system is so rotten, rather than because they're lacking awareness, knowledge and understanding? Cameron is not moderate, he's just as bad as the rest of 'em, but with a (now dropped) coating of green and a bit of social modernity with the gay marriage thing. There are so many people whose vote is meaningless. Most constituencies don't change hands, they're safe one way or the other. And even when they do change, there hasn't been that much difference between Red and Blue in the past (until relatively recently). Maybe a lot of people have just decided that whoever they vote for words removed will get in. But in terms of awareness, there are plenty of people with views on immigration, on the environment, on the NHS and all that. It's just more single issue based, a lot of the time, and that's replaced party based allegiances, perhaps? I agree on the first line and in terms of many seats being safe. We will have to agree to disagree on the rest though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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